


Air Made of Bricks

by MachaSWicket



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, Season/Series 4.5, the summer of unbearable sexual tension: this time it's even unbearable-er
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8213407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket
Summary: I just wanted to write something short and sweet set in the summer of unbearable sexual tension 2.0: this time it’s even unbearable-er. You know, something short and sweet about Felicity being punched in the face. You’ll be shocked to learn it’s not terribly short, or terribly sweet, or really about Felicity being punched in the face. But... at least it’s something. ;)  Title from Adele’s Melt My Heart to Stone.





	

 

“ _Frak_!” Felicity yelps, all thoughts of fighting gone, no immediate concern for anything other than the burning starbust of _OUCH_  taking up the entire right side of her face. Because that jerk just _punched her in the face_! Like, actually  _punched_  her. _In the face_. Somehow, she is on her knees on the cold cement floor, her shaking hands covering her throbbing face, having lost total track of where Oliver--

“Overwatch!”

Oh. Right. The nearby grunts and scuffling are starting to filter through her nervous system’s _strong insistence_  that she only pay attention to her poor, aching face. That’s Oliver. He’s close, maybe ten feet away, still grappling with three of the four big, beefy  _jerks_  masquerading as security when they’re not just randomly _punching people in the face_. Yes, fine, _technically_  she and Oliver are breaking and entering, which means the guards are _technically_  within their rights to subdue the intruders. But since the guards are, in fact, guarding a pallet of computers stolen from the youth center in the Glades, Felicity feels pretty certain that she and Oliver have the moral high ground in this particular confrontation.

That’s when she can feel anything at all other than what she’s _certain_  are the shards of her shattered orbital socket slicing into the inside of her face. 

And then she feels rough hands on her -- and not, like, _Oliver yanking her closer for fun sexytimes_ , because (a) they don’t do that anymore, unfortunately, and (b) these are most definitely _not_  Oliver’s hands. Punchy McJerkface pulls her roughly back to her feet and shoves her  _hard_  into the wall. 

Felicity collides with the unforgiving surface shoulder-first and gasps in pain.

“ _Overwatch_!” Oliver sounds desperate, even through the strange ringing in her ears. Is this a concussion? Do concussions make things go all unfocused and kaleidoscope-y? Can she even get a concussion from one punch in the face, no matter _how_ hard?

Felicity blinks herself back to the here and now in time to see Punchy McJerkface charge towards Oliver, who’s still fighting two of three _other_  jerks. Felicity is _not about_  to let the guy who punched jump into the fray, disorienting ringing in her ears be damned. Thankfully, since they’re in a warehouse, there are several makeshift weapon options within reach -- old metal pipes (which, when she grabs for one, are surprisingly heavy), an abandoned collection of bricks (which Felicity considers, before remembering that she _sucked_  at shot put), and some stray lengths of wood (eureka!). 

No matter how many times Oliver and Diggle try to better Felicity’s self-defense skills, she always, _always_  defaults to the tried and true Find Heavy Bat-Like Object and Swing at Opponent’s Face. Her aim is mediocre, though, so when she yells, “Hey, get back here!” and Punchy McJerkface glances at her, she swings an old two-by-four as hard as she can and whacks him right in the shoulder. “Well, he definitely doesn’t have a concussion,” she mutters, frowning. 

“Overwatch, get _out_  of here!” Oliver orders breathlessly. He’s got two of his guys down and moaning, but the third man is big and apparently a good enough fighter to hold his own with Oliver. 

“I’m not leaving you,” she argues, even as Punchy McJerkface shakes off the blow to his shoulder and starts advancing on her again. “Frak,” she says, readying the board in her hand for another swing.

Before he gets within striking distance, Punchy McJerkface groans and crumbles to the ground, hands scrabbling for his right leg. Which is now sporting a flechette in the hamstring. Felicity winces, turning back to Oliver, who’s breathing hard and standing over all four security guards, crumpled into varying pained and unconscious positions on the floor. 

“Oh,” Felicity says, then she meets Oliver’s glower-y gaze. “Is there time to--”

“You need to go to the hospital,” he says, taking two large, quick steps to stand really just _way_  inside her personal space. 

She holds her ground and tilts her head back, and from this close, not even the shadows from his hood can hide the pain and regret on his face as he scans her for injuries. Her cheek is probably swollen already and turning colors. “I’m fine,” she tells him, and, yeah, okay, maybe she’s _not_  fine -- because her face is throbbing and aching and she basically wants to dunk her entire head into an ice bucket -- but she _also_  wants those stolen computers back. “Tie them up, I’ll pull the van closer.”

“Overwatch,” he growls, but she’s already turned on her heel to walk away. Her sensible, _sneakered_ heel, so her retreat lacks some of her normal panache, but the overall point stands. They came here for these computers, and they are damn well leaving with them. When she pulls the van around, the four angry security guards are tied to poles, and recapturing the stolen goods goes fairly quickly.

By the time they’re halfway back to the lair, Felicity’s indignance and adrenaline are petering out, leaving the insistent _pain_  in her face and the ache in her head to occupy her attention. “Frak,” she mutters, pressing her cheek against the cool glass of the van’s window for relief. “How do you guys _do_  this?”

“Do what?” Oliver asks, his words clipped and brusque, betraying his temper. His hood is down, his mask dangling around his neck, his jaw clenched as he drives them through the darkened streets.

Felicity knows he’s upset that she’s hurt, not upset with her, but the knowledge doesn’t quite soothe her instinct to snap back. “What do you _think_?”

“Felicity,” he says, softer this time, but accompanied by an exasperated sigh, which doesn’t do much to dampen her irritation with _his_  irritation.

“I know you’re angry that I got hurt,” she tells him, drawing on every last iota of patience in her body. “But you needed backup tonight, and we both know I’m not a great melee fighter. So--” She lifts her hands in a _whaddyagonnado_  gesture-- “I guess sometimes it goes well, and sometimes I get punched in the face.”

“ _No_ ,” Oliver argues, his fingers clenched tight on the steering wheel. “I will not accept you getting punched in the face, or punched at all, or _hurt._ ”

Her skull feels like it’s throbbing with each beat of her heart, half of her face is puffy and hot and tender, and she just does not want to have this conversation right now. Still, she can’t quite stop the unflattering scoffing/snorting-type noise that tumbles out of her as she turns away from him. “Ironic,” she mutters.

They’re not far from the lair, so Felicity doesn’t expect Oliver to slam on the brakes and swerve the van onto the shoulder. “No,” he snaps, throwing the van into park. “That’s not fair. I would never, _ever_  intentionally hurt you and you know it, Felicity. You _know_  it.”

The anger and the hurt she’s been suppressing for _months_  starts to boil over. “Do you think it hurts _less_  when you punch me in the face by accident?” she half-yells. Oliver recoils, eyes wide and glassy, and Felicity grimaces. “Not that you--” She shakes her head. “ _Metaphorically_ , Oliver,” she explains, reaching across the distance between them to lay her hand on his arm for a moment. “I have never been scared of you. You _know_  that. I just meant...” She trails off, searching for a way to put this into words. 

“You just meant what?” he asks, his voice so low it’s nearly drowned out by the idling of the van’s engine.

Felicity wants to explain. She wants _so badly_  to pour her heart out to this man that she loves -- still, _always_  -- so that he can pull her into one of those big hugs, so that he can shelter her with his strength while she tries to put herself back together. Because she’s _broken_ , way down deep inside. There have been cracks and fissures as long as she can remember, left there by important people in her life as they walked away. And she’s spackled over them all with self-sufficiency and determination and achievement and by doing things that would’ve made them proud, had they cared enough to stay.

She’s held herself together for _years_ with the knowledge that she may not be very lovable, but at least she is a fundamentally good person. 

Now she knows that even that saving grace is a lie. 

Because a good person wouldn’t be responsible for killing a city -- for killing thousands and thousands and thousands of men, women, _children_ ; for killing countless beloved dogs and cats and guinea pigs; for destroying plants and trees and wildlife; for leaving a barren, broken wasteland where there once were  _families_.

Felicity doesn’t have Oliver’s love, or her career achievements, or even the basic knowledge that she’s _good_  to spackle over the cracks anymore. So the hairline fractures widened into yawning pits, then into a vast, windblown emptiness that makes her panic if she lets herself think about it.

So she doesn’t.

She busies herself writing new programs to gain access to security feeds and FBI files. She improves the pattern-recognition engine she built, fine-tuning it. She fusses over Oliver’s suit, pushing Cisco to keep improving the design. Some nights, she even insists on backing Oliver up when he’s outnumbered, or when he needs the van.

And when she gets punched in the face-- “My head is killing me,” she answers him, so very belatedly, “but getting punched doesn’t hurt nearly a much as the rest of it.”

Too late, she realizes just how revealing that answer is.

Oliver wheezes a bit as he sucks in air, his gaze full of understanding and empathy when she chances a look at him. “Felicity...”

She closes her eyes, turns her head away, presses her swollen cheek to the window. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she whispers, her whole body tensing up against the panic she can feel coiling inside.

“Felicity, _please_  look at me.” He waits, and she tries to squeeze her eyes shut tighter but that just makes her wince because, yeah,  _punched in the face_  and then she huffs in irritation. Oliver’s hand lands on her bicep, gentle fingers touching her in a way he hasn’t in months and months. “I just want to help,” he tells her.

“ _Nothing_  helps,” she tells the cool glass of the window. She hasn’t found anything that comes close to filling up that vast emptiness inside of her. Logically she knows she needs to atone for 20,000 souls, and she doesn’t know if that’s even possible. But she has to try. “I just -- I need to do something _good_ , and if that’s dangerous, if that means Punchy McJerkface hits me in the face, then that’s a small enough price to pay to try to make up for--”

“No,” Oliver interrupts, his tone so fierce it startles her into looking at him. He unbuckles his seat belt, twists in his seat, his leather pants creaking with the movement. “No, you have _nothing_  to make up for. Felicity, you _are_  good.”

“Not anymore,” she whispers.

Oliver leans closer. “Havenrock--” She flinches hard a the word-- “wasn’t your fault.”

Her voice is as flat and devoid of life as the ruined city itself when she answers, “I typed in the coordinates. I _chose_  the location. It’s my fault.”

“It’s _not_.” Oliver’s fingers graze her arm, trailing down past her elbow, to her wrist. He tugs her hand, chafing it between both of his, and the tips of her fingers start to tingle. “You didn’t launch hundreds of nuclear weapons. You would  _never_ have done that. Darhk set everything in motion, and you stopped all but  _one_. You were phenomenal that night, Felicity.”

“Darhk set everything in motion,” she repeats woodenly.

Oliver’s cheeks flush, and he presses his lips together for a moment. “Everything with the bombs,” he clarifies quietly. “The rest was my fault, but I have never meant to hurt you, Felicity.” He turns back, those piercing blue eyes pinning her in place. “You _must_ know that.”

She simply shrugs. “It doesn’t make the pain more bearable because you  _thoughtlessly_  hurt me.” 

He’s watching her like she ripped out his heart and performed a punishing tap dance on it. Then he looks away from her, staring through the windshield as he pulls himself together. 

“I’m not saying this to _hurt_  you,” Felicity says, words spilling out of her now. Because she may be broken, but Oliver isn’t -- not anymore. She can’t be the cause of him losing ground. “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty or upset or-- I just--” She swallows hard, the sudden lump in her throat choking off whatever she’d meant to say. “I think I understand now.”

Oliver turns back to her, confusion and curiosity on his face. “What do you mean?”

Felicity sucks in a breath, fighting the tears that are threatening. She hasn’t cried in months, but something about tonight, about this conversation is leaving her raw. “When you came back, when you felt -- you didn’t just _want_  to help people. You _needed_  to do something to-- to--” She shakes her head, struggling for words.

“To make up for what I’d done,” Oliver supplies. 

“That’s how I feel now,” Felicity says. “I used to feel this urge to do something good -- to help save the city, to keep people from being hurt or robbed. I used to get this sense of satisfaction, of _purpose_  out of what we do. But now I just...” She exhales unsteadily. “Now I _need_  it. I need to make up for all the lives I’ve ruined.”

“It was not your fault,” Oliver repeats. When she makes a face, he squeezes her hand. “I’m going to tell you that every time I hear you blame yourself,” he says in that low, determined tone he uses when he is making a vow. “And one day, you’ll believe me.”

She wants to believe him, or at least believe that one day she’ll be _able_  to believe he’s right about this.

But she can’t. 

“Guilt is all I am these days,” she whispers.

“No.” Oliver moves, sliding along the bench seat, unbuckling her seat belt and pulling her flush against him. Those big, strong arms wrap around her, and she presses her face to the familiar leather on his chest. “You are so much more than that, Felicity,” he tells her, one hand smoothing along her spine. “I know you can’t see that now, and it’s okay. I’ve-- I’ve been there. I remember what it feels like, and I’m going to be with you every step of the way out of that big hole, okay?”

She’s crying. 

It hits her fast and hard, a cascade of grief, and she’s sobbing into his chest. He doesn’t try to calm her down, doesn’t try to tell her everything will be okay. He just holds her and speaks to her in a low, soothing voice, telling her that she’s a good person having a tough time, that she’s done so much to help those around her that it’s their turn to help her, that he will never leave her alone in this awful, lonely place. The only thing she truly believes is that last part -- she knows he'll never give up on her. 

“You are not alone,” he whispers against her hair, over and over again. “I will never leave you.”

Felicity loses track of time, of the throbbing in her head, which is an awful mixture of the punch and all of this crying. She must fall into an exhausted doze at some point, because she remembers crying, and then she is being carried in a familiar embrace.

When Felicity opens her red, swollen eyes, Oliver is holding her snug against his chest as he brings her up the stairs in the loft to their bedroom. _Her_  bedroom. “Oliver?” 

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, angling through the doorway and crossing to the bed. There are new linens on the bed -- bright pink, oversized poppies, because she needed to change as much as possible to be able to stay here, but Oliver doesn’t react. He sets her down on the edge of the bed and pulls the covers back. “Do you want to change?” he asks softly, and that’s when she realizes he’s wearing the green arrow suit.

Eyes wide, she touches his leather-covered thigh. “Oliver, you’re still--”

“It’s fine,” he reassures her. “I brought you up through the garage elevator.”

“I need to erase that footage,” she says, reaching for the tablet on her bedside table. She still feels foggy, like she can’t quite wake all the way up.

“You need tylenol, some ice for your face, and a lot of sleep,” Oliver counters, catching her hand and holding it in his. “Get changed. I’ll go get you some water.”

It’s bizarre how much it’s _not_  really bizarre to have him suddenly back in this space they used to share so intimately. He’s wearing the arrow suit, which  _never_  happened when they lived here together, but his presence feels normal, a nearly-forgotten kind of _right_. 

Movements slow and clumsy, Felicity tugs on her dog face pajama pants and a Queen for Mayor t-shirt before heading into the bathroom. Her face is puffy and already turning ugly colors, which makes taking her makeup off a painful endeavor. She brushes her teeth, then stumbles back into the bedroom and settles under the covers.

Oliver reappears shortly thereafter. He’d shed his hood downstairs, approaching her in the skin-tight black tactical tank top holding water, tylenol, and a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a towel. She accepts the offerings, washing down the pills with several large gulps of water. Then she wriggles down the bed, resting her head on the pillow and bringing the makeshift ice pack to her face with a little moan.

Perched on the bed beside her hip, Oliver watches her with sharp eyes. “You might have a concussion,” he says worriedly.

“I don’t have a concussion,” she tells him, letting her eyes drift shut. “My face just hurts.” She shifts the ice pack on her face.

“You’re going to have a shiner,” he tells her, and the note of anguish in his voice causes her to reach blindly for his hand. He tangles their fingers together. “I’d like to stay, make sure you’re okay. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No,” she says tiredly, more focused on the soothing coolness of the frozen peas than her words. Oliver stiffens beside her and she clarifies. “You hate that couch, Oliver. Just stay here.”

She doesn’t mean it like _that_ , and she hopes Oliver knows her well enough to understand it. She wants him to be comfortable as he watches over her, and there is no way she feels up to any sex-related bad decision-making, so there’s no real downside to her awesome sleeping together plan. 

When he doesn’t answer, she peels open her tired eyes to find him watching her carefully. “Are you sure?” he asks.

Felicity reaches down and pats his leg. “I trust you.”

Oliver swallows hard and has to look away for a moment. “Good,” he answers belatedly, his voice low and gruff. “Good.” 

“So you’ll stay?” she asks.

His gaze is warm and determined when he nods. “Always.”

Felicity knows he means more than this, more than one night of injury-related care-taking. She knows he hasn’t truly given up on her, on _them_. She’s not ready to consider any of that, though, not when she’s stuck in the middle of all this emptiness and guilt. She can’t really think past surviving moment to moment.

But for the first time in a long time, she feels like maybe, someday, she’ll find her way out. And maybe then, she’ll be ready to think about this man who helped her find her way out of that pit.

For now, though, it’s enough that he stays by her side. It’s enough that he pulls on sweatpants, climbs into bed beside her, and holds her hand until she falls asleep.

END

 _Note:_ indignance _is a super-archaic word, but I don’t even care because it fit precisely what I needed in that sentence._


End file.
